Photos of the Week

(RNS) — Each week Religion News Service presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This week’s gallery includes images from Hindu festival celebrations in Asia, Mapuche marches in Chile and more.

Indian women smear vermilion powder on each other during Vijayadashmi celebrations in Mumbai, India, on Oct. 19, 2018. Vijayadashami, also known as Dussehra, commemorates the victory of the Hindu god Rama over demon god Ravana. The festivity is marked with the burning of effigies of Ravana, signifying the victory of good over evil. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

In this Sunday, Oct. 14, 2018 photo, followers of the ancient Mandaean religious sect perform their rituals along a strip of embankment on the Tigris River reserved for them, in Baghdad, Iraq. Mandaeanism follows the teachings of John the Baptist, a saint in both the Christian and Islamic traditions, and their rituals revolve around water. Iraq’s soaring water pollution is threatening the religious rites of the tight-knit community, already devastated by 15 years of war. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

An Orthodox Church member sweeps fallen leaves at the St. Nicolas Russian Orthodox Church in the old city in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Oct. 18, 2018. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

Mapuche, a group of indigenous inhabitants of South America, march against the commemoration of the discovery of the Americas in Santiago, Chile, on Oct. 14, 2018. Protesters of several groups demanded autonomy and the recovery of ancestral land and demonstrated against Chile’s anti-terrorism law, under which many Mapuche Indians have been arrested. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Images of the Virgin are found everywhere during the Romería of the Virgin of Zapopan, including on the typical shoes worn by dancers, during the annual procession in western Mexico. RNS photo by Ameyalli Díaz

Hameeda Danesh, a candidate for Parliament, visits a school, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Oct. 14, 2018. Danesh hopes to represent the deeply conservative district of Jalrez in central Wardak province. In the Oct. 20 election, 417 of the 2,565 candidates, or roughly 16 percent, are women. Yet in rural Afghanistan, especially in the country’s ethnic Pashtun areas where the Taliban is dominant, many women are not even registered to vote. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Salvadorans stay up all night to watch live television from the Vatican where their country’s martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero is declared a saint, outside the cathedral where Romero’s remains are entombed in San Salvador, El Salvador, early Oct. 14, 2018. For many in San Salvador, it was the culmination of a fraught and politicized campaign to have the church formally honor a man who publicly denounced the repression by the military dictatorship at the start of the country’s 1980-1992 civil war. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

Buddhist monk and anti-Muslim community leader Wirathu, center, marches with thousands of supporters during a pro-military rally on Oct. 14, 2018, in Yangon, Myanmar. Several thousand pro-military and nationalist demonstrators marched through Yangon on Sunday voicing their support for Myanmar’s armed forces and government while condemning foreign involvement in the country’s affairs. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Hindu devotees wait in line to offer prayers on the ninth day of Dashain festival in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Oct. 18, 2018. The festival commemorates the slaying of a demon king by Hindu goddess Durga, marking the victory of good over evil. Animals are sacrificed at Hindu temples during the festival. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)